WASHINGTON — Sierra Nevada filed a protest of a major NASA contract late Friday, saying its proposal to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station would save money and should be given further consideration.
This month, NASA awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX under what is called the “commercial crew” program, which would allow the United States, for the first time since the space shuttle was retired three years ago, to launch astronauts into space from U.S. soil.
The contract would end the United States’ reliance on Russia, which charges more than $70 million a seat for trips to the space station aboard its Soyuz craft.
Boeing’s contract is worth up to $4.2 billion; SpaceX, which said it could perform the work for far less, was awarded a contract valued at $2.6 billion.
In announcing its protest in a statement, Sierra Nevada noted that it had “never filed a legal challenge to a government contract award” in its 51-year history.
The Nevada-based company said it was compelled to file a protest with the Government Accountability Office because of “serious questions and inconsistencies in the source selection process.” Sierra Nevada’s proposal was the second-lowest-priced, the company said, while it “achieved mission suitability scores comparable to the other two proposals.”
The award by NASA would mean “the U.S. government would spend up to $900 million more at the publicly announced contracted level for a space program equivalent to the program that Sierra Nevada proposed,” the statement said.
Unlike SpaceX and Boeing, which would use capsules to dock to the space station, Sierra Nevada proposes using a reusable miniature shuttle, or “space plane,” called the Dream Chaser. The craft “provides a wider range of capabilities and value,” the statement said.
A NASA spokeswoman declined to comment.
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